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Furious Crystal Palace supporters have demanded that Uefa reverse its decision to demote the FA Cup winners from the Europa League to the Conference League next season as they staged a protest march outside Selhurst Park on Tuesday evening.
It was confirmed last week that Uefa’s club financial control body had concluded Palace breached its multi-club ownership criteria, with the south London club expected to appeal to the court of arbitration for sport (Cas) against a decision that their chair, Steve Parish, described as “probably one of the greatest injustices that has ever happened in European football”.
Parish also revealed that the New York Jets owner Woody Johnson has passed the Premier League’s owners’ and directors’ test that should enable him to complete his purchase of John Textor’s 43% stake in the coming days. However, with Uefa deeming that move came too late to save them, having ruled that Textor’s Eagle Football Holdings Ltd had controlling stakes over both French club Lyon and Palace, a protest organised by supporters’ group the Holmesdale Fanatics was attended by hundreds of fans who marched from Norwood High Street to Palace’s stadium.
“Uefa: morally bankrupt. Revoke the ruling now,” read a large banner at the front of the march, with another reading: “Football: created by the poor, stolen by the rich.” “It’s not fair that we’ve won the oldest Cup competition in the world and then been demoted from the Europa League,” said Palace fan Josh Harness.
“We earned the right to be there and all we can do is show our support for the club. The delay over the decision also means we can’t start planning for next season yet because we didn’t know what competition we were going to be in.”
The group behind the tifos that were on display at the Wembley FA Cup semi-final and final against Aston Villa and Manchester City respectively, the Fanatics had said it was “time to act” and called on supporters “of all teams to join us”.
“Those who are disillusioned with the state of modern football, those who are tired of the authorities favouring a small cartel of larger clubs all in the name of profit and those who want to bring football back to the fans, where it belongs,” said a statement announcing the protest.
“We must come together for our voice to be heard around Europe. This will not be an isolated action, but the beginning of the campaign against those responsible for the moral and financial corruption that has plagued the modern game. Let us remind Uefa and the Cas that this ruling can, and should, change.”
A petition that calls on Uefa to restore Palace to the Europa League has also been signed by almost 3,000 people since being posted on Friday. Uefa rejected an attempt by Textor and fellow American co-owner David Blitzer – the majority shareholder of Danish club Brondby, who have also qualified for the Conference League – to place their shares in a blind trust because they had missed the March deadline.
Use of a blind trust has enabled other clubs with the same owners to play together in a Uefa competition. Sources at the European governing body confirmed that it had cleared both clubs to play in the same competition having deemed that Blitzer does not have a decisive influence at Palace.
However, writing on X over the weekend, Parish questioned the logic behind the current system. “Let’s put this ‘THEY missed the deadline’ nonsense to bed. Let’s say Me, Josh, David and everyone other than Eagle football had placed our shares in a ‘blind trust’ before March 1st. Three random people would have had control of the club since then but by Uefa’s interpretation of the rules we would still be out of the Europa League.”
